One Day, One Box, One Garbage Can

(To start with, I’ve shanghaied the title of today’s entry from my buddy Travis, who writes at One Word, One Rung, One Day. Good stuff over there, check it out.)

It is astounding just how much crap I have accumulated in my lifetime.

Everyone thinks they have too much stuff in their house. There are entire magazines and websites dedicated to just getting things organized, so I know I’m not alone.

I set out on a new project around my house. Every day, I will take one box of stuff from a closet, the garage, under the bed, wherever, and go through it. Anything that’s really important to me, I’ll keep. Anything of value or worth, I’ll sell on Ebay or give away. Anything that’s useless get’s thrown out.

To begin with, my house has approximately as many leftover boxes as the storage facility they showed at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Growing up poor has apparently led me to become a thriving crap magnet. I didn’t realize, but it looks like I’ve had some of these boxes of old crap for so long, they’ve fused together and become furniture.

After a few boxes, I’m starting to wonder if I’ve ever thrown anything away in my life. Those people on Hoarders make a lot more sense to me now. Old magazines aplenty, outdated forms of media, and all my old bills, kept in no particular order or organizational method.

Do I really need every water bill I ever paid? If I haven’t paid yet for that subscription to Writer’s Magazine back in 2004, I seriously doubt that keeping the invoices around is going to help. And how many cassette tapes do I need to keep around? Am I afraid that if I throw the tape away, I’ll never find Don Williams’ Greatest Hits on CD anywhere?

I’ve got so many papers in my shredder pile, I look like I’m preparing for a New Year’s Eve party. I’m filling up garbage bags left and right, and all the while seeing about a 1% important-papers-to-useless-crap ratio.

The only thing I saved? Tax forms, baby. The Internal Revenue Service is the only thing scary enough to instill eternal vigilance.

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